Ichabod's Dream
by YuukiFairy
Summary: Are Ichabod's dreams trying to tell him something? Will he find himself trapped in a nightmare world, or will his dreams lead him to a shocking truth about his past?
1. Chapter 1

_'__Tis a hushed and haunted moment,_

_A whisper of the past,_

_And the present here unfolding,_

_The love entwined at last._

**_Prologue_**

A flock of ravens flew across the face of the moon. He heard the heavy rush of wings high above him as if they were moving in slow motion. Night was like a dream, a place to get lost in. From out of the misty void, someone called his name.

"Ichabod."

Like a child who is slow in awakening, he looked about him and saw that he was in a cemetery. The weeds were overgrown, nearly knee-high, and the moss-covered stones were half sunk into the ground, as if centuries had passed. Mist swirled around his boots like a writhing, living entity in the darkness.

He sensed that he was not alone. From the corner of his eye he saw something move. Something went winging through the darkness. Smooth, silent, inexorable.

The voice came again, a mere breath but more insistent this time. "Ichabod."

He had a sudden conviction that something was waiting in the darkness for him. Perhaps it was a _part_ of the darkness. He looked down to see a headstone with his name upon it and he wanted to be away from that place.

But the voice whispered a ghostly summons that he could not ignore. "Come, Ichabod."

As if it were a part of the mist, a figure rose up from the ground. It took on the form of a woman, but it was a wavering apparition. Where the mist began and the figure ended he could not tell. He stared at the vaporous face and saw that the moon was mirrored in the black sockets where her eyes should be.

"Come, Ichabod," the apparition repeated, impatience roughening her voice so that it ended in a low growl. "Come . . . closer."

He saw a row of hooded figures on their knees in the darkness. They were facing away from him so he could not see their faces, if indeed they had faces. Suddenly the dream changed, took on the terrifying aspect of a nightmare.

The air around him grew heavy with the fecund odor of decaying vegetation and the trees surrounding him shivered from a slight wind, their gnarled branches seeming to reach towards him with razor-sharp, black talons.

The apparition opened its mouth wide and a high-pitched, keening cry came forth. It turned into a howl that echoed eerily through the night. It was a hungry, unholy sound. Then the figure moved in a frightening, jerky motion, like a dying snake contorting in its final death throes. Blood black as pitch began to spew from her mouth.

"We are- " the apparition hissed, her breath foul and hot and seething like a hellish vapor from her throat.

"Cursed by the blood of innocents," Ichabod heard himself cry out.

He saw that there was a lantern in his hand and he held it towards the apparition. The light, he realized, had power to make it vanish. He stretched his arm out farther still, but a sudden wind rose and the light was extinguished. In the darkness he felt the evil creature rush towards him, hungry for his very soul . . .

_Ichabod sat up with a start_. He looked around for headstones but saw with relief that he was in his own bed with only the familiar furnishings of his room surrounding him. His heart was still pounding wildly inside his chest and terror seemed to course through his veins with each throb. Had he cried out? It seemed that he had done so. The dream had seemed so terrifyingly real.

He tried to will his racing heart to slow its pace, but the feeling of the nightmare lingered. He got out of bed and went to the window where the moonlight bathed his naked body in silvery light. His reflection was captured in the glass for a moment before he turned from the window, still feeling the pull of the dream though it was, thankfully, gradually ebbing. With a frustrated sigh he raked his dark hair back from his face as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

Yet another nightmare.

His dark brows drew together in a frown as he told himself sternly: No more hot dogs before bedtime. At least not with mustard. Although the piquant condiment was tasty, almost addictive, according to the lieutenant, it caused one to have especially vivid dreams. Perhaps she was right. It did seem to bring on the most intense dreams.

His frown remained in place as he drew back the blanket and eyed his empty bed. If only his beloved wife, Catrina, was there to welcome him with open arms and make him forget these nightmares. If only his dreams had been of her . . .


	2. Chapter 2

**_Chapter 2_**

"The body was badly mutilated, so an ID is going to be difficult. Damned difficult."

A body had been found in the woods several miles east of town early that morning by a man walking his dog and Abby was listening to the details of the preliminary report with a growing sense of unease. The savagery of the crime was a bad sign. Although the body was torn to shreds, there was enough left to see that there were two puncture marks in the throat. Earlier someone had made a tasteless joke about it looking like fang marks. But nobody was actually taking that seriously.

"Where exactly was the body found?" Abby asked.

"That information is being withheld for now."

She looked up at her superior. "Oh?"

She couldn't understand what reason there would be for withholding that particular detail. It could turn out to be a critical clue in solving the crime, so why the secrecy? She also couldn't help but think about Ichabod's vampire dreams.

When they were alone, she filled Ichabod in on what she knew.

"What?" she asked as she looked at Ichabod's expression. She gave him a look, the same one she always gave him when he looked like that. "I know what you're thinking. But don't say it."

She would almost certainly be taken off the case if she so much as hinted at the subject of vampires.

_Ichabod watched Aedre walk across_ _the park_ in the dappled sunshine. Her blue summer dress floated about her like a soft cloud. She was quite lovely. Beautiful actually. There was no sense in denying it. That would have been less than honest. She smiled warmly when she saw him and said his name in that lilting way that she had. "Ichabod. I'm sorry I'm late."

Out of the corner of his eye, Ichabod saw Abby walk out of the courthouse and hesitate on the steps. He straightened from where he had been leaning against the fence, trying unsuccessfully to look casual. "Give me a minute," he said to Aedre.

"We- uh, we're having lunch in the park," he told Abby, looking back over his shoulder at Aedre who was waiting patiently for him.

"Like a picnic?" Abby asked, glancing over his shoulder, too, and trying her best not to look too curious. But of course that's exactly what she was.

She didn't say anything else, but he lowered his voice and hastened to explain himself anyway. "It's not, as you call it now, a date or anything like that. We want to discuss the background of the town. She's been researching its history. Her ancestors fought in the war. And I- "

"And you were there," she finished for him. "Look, you don't owe me any explanations, Ichabod."

"You're welcome to join us. In fact, I would like it if you- "

"It's a tempting offer," Abby said. "But I'm late for a meeting."

"You're sure you can't- "

"No, really. Go have your lunch."

He inclined his head towards her and said in a low, confidential voice, "We'll talk later, lieutenant."

"Do you want to go to the corn dog stand?" Aedre asked him when he re-joined her.

"Corn dog?" He had seen the sign, of course, but he had never eaten at the place. Abby always preferred home-cooked meals when she was not pressed for time. He had no idea what a corn dog was. A lot of strange images came to his mind.

"Oh, it's merely a battered hot dog that has been skewered on a stick," he said when the woman behind the counter handed him his food. "How ingenious. You don't even need a utensil to eat it."

He stared at the swirling design of bright yellow mustard down the length of Aedre's corn dog. Mustard? Probably not a good idea. He hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and picked up the bottle of mustard. What harm could just a little mustard do?

They sat on a bench in the dappled shade of the park while they ate, and watched the other people go about their various activities. They watched the woman with the stroller and the two children playing a game of tag in and out of the bushes. They watched the squirrels. But they avoided looking at each other until the silence grew almost awkward.

Ichabod, himself, didn't understand his unusual reticence with the woman_. _It seemed as if Aedre had cast some kind of spell over him. It must have been true because he heard himself come right out and say what he was thinking.

"There is something happening between us."

Dear heavens, had he just said that? Unfortunately, he couldn't take it back. In fact, he felt it hang like an unmoving, visible cloud in the air between them.

"I know."

It wasn't the answer he expected.

He stared at the trees in the distance. "I need to tell you something. You should know about my- wife."

"You don't wear a ring," Aedre said quietly.

"No. No, I don't. He looked down, and thought it was strange himself that there was no ring on his finger. He hoped she had not gotten the wrong impression. He had not meant to mislead her.

"I _had_ a wife," he said abstractedly, confusion suddenly fogging his brain for no accountable reason.

"Oh," he heard. "Then you're not married _now_?"

He answered her as honestly as he could. "Catrina has been- gone a very long time."

"You're a widower then?"

Technically, perhaps . . .

"She's still alive in my memory," he said.

"I respect that you have stayed true to her memory, Ichabod. You must have loved her very much."

Yes, he had. But why did the memories of that love suddenly seem so elusive? So hard to hold onto?


	3. Chapter 3

**_Chapter 3_**

_ Abby straightened after she walked into the kitchen_ and kneaded the small of her back. It had been a long day. A very long day. It was Monday and yesterday's driving lessons had been a lot more pleasant than today's long hours confined at the office.

She didn't find Ichabod in the kitchen, but something smelled amazing in there. She walked into the den and saw that he must have been on the computer. And apparently he had visited the library as well. Books were piled everywhere.

He must have been taking notes, too. She looked at an open notebook with some scribbling in his handwriting and tilted her head as she checked the titles on some of the books. She looked at the computer screen. Still on. She pressed a few buttons and frowned. Apparently, he had been researching the subject of vampires.

At least it wasn't porn. He'd accidentally gotten into that one day. Of course, he'd been shocked and embarrassed at what could be found on the internet.

He appeared suddenly in the doorway. "Oh, you're home. Dinner will be ready in half an hour. I've put together a beef stew with dumplings and I thought that a cobbler would be nice for dessert. You do like apple, I hope?"

"Yes," she replied "Apple is my favorite."

"I thought so. I'd better check on it now."

When he turned to go, she stopped him in the doorway by asking, "Why all the interest in vampires?"

He whirled back around to face her, hesitating only a moment before answering, "I had another dream."

"About vampires?"

"Yes. I dreamed about the unholy creatures yet again."

She waited for him to go on.

"This time- " he paused and frowned down at the rug between them. "Aedre was in danger. And I couldn't help her."

By the look on his face, it must have been some dream.

"Why don't you tell me about your dream?"

"I will. As soon as I get dinner out of the oven."

_"So the victim is a relative of mine?"_

They finally had an ID on the murder victim. His name was Elan Blackmer. They didn't want to give Aedre too many of the gruesome details of the murder. In any case, they were still waiting on the official autopsy report. But apparently the deceased was a cousin of hers.

"I haven't seen Elan since we were young children," Aedre said half to herself. She looked at both of them for a moment before she asked quietly, "Did he suffer before he died?"

Abby didn't immediately reply.

Ichabod released a slow breath, while his eyes closed for a long moment. He didn't fill in the details. He merely nodded.

"That's why it's important that we find the killer," Abby said. "We now know approximately _where_ the murder took place. It was near a residence that has been in your family for generations. Oak Manor. Of course, the place has been abandoned for a long time, but we were wondering if you could tell us anything about it."

"I've never been there myself," Aedre began. "My mother seemed to avoid even talking about it. But I do have an aunt that lived there for a while. Maybe she could tell you something about it."

Abby nodded. "Well, then let's see if we can talk to this aunt."

* * *

><p><em>They had only found out about the murder location<em> by mistake. A file had been left out unintentionally. When Abby had been caught looking at the file, it had been snatched abruptly out of her hand by the secretary who asked her to keep quiet about seeing the file, adding that the people in charge would have her hide if they knew. Who the secretary had been alluding to, Abby wasn't sure. Logically, since Abby was working on the case, she should have been able to get permission to look at the file. It should have been no big deal. Apparently, however, there was nothing logical about this case. Somebody was going to great lengths to keep her in the dark. If somebody was hiding something, she wanted to know why. Because if somebody was hiding something, there had to be a reason.

They couldn't get an appointment to talk to Aedre's aunt until tomorrow. Until then, they had decided to do some further digging by themselves.

Abby kept her voice low. "I don't know about this, Ichabod."

He looked back over his shoulder. "Are you afraid of what we might find?"

She didn't buy his vampire theory. He couldn't seem to let it go.

"No," she answered him. "I'm more afraid of getting caught breaking into the records storage room."

"Don't think about that," he told her in a voice barely above a whisper. "Just think about finding what we're looking for. The sooner we find _something_, the sooner we can get out of here."

But she still had her reservations. "I shouldn't have let you talk me into this. I don't know what I was thinking."

"You were thinking that you want to solve this case before it's too late for the next victim," he said as if he was answering her own question.

She didn't have a reply to that. He was right, of course. Lives could be at stake. That's what really mattered. And it wasn't like this was the most dangerous thing she had ever done.

As usual, he didn't lose his focus. He stood before the file cabinets, scanning them to see which ones they should start with.

"These should be in alphabetical order," he said to himself before pulling open a drawer. "Let's start here," he said as he pulled out a file.

Half an hour later, they still had found nothing. There was no file on Oak Manor, even though Aedre had mentioned that the family had alluded to some kind of tragic crime in the past.

"Maybe it's not here," she whispered. "Maybe someone took the file out. Or- maybe it doesn't even exist."

"Maybe," he said absently, tapping the fingers of one hand on the file cabinet before him. "But what about those files over there?"

She breathed a tense sigh. To her dismay, he wasn't finished yet.

They crossed the room. As Ichabod slid a drawer outward, a musty odor rose up from the interior of the cabinet. It didn't take him long to locate a thick file, slide it out of its place and drop it on top of the file cabinet. He immediately started flipping through the yellowed stack of pages.

"What exactly are you looking for?"

"Parallels," he answered her in a low voice. "Something in the past that will give us information about the present."

"You think there might have been what? A murder at Oak Manor sometime in the past?"

"Exactly." He graced her with a brief glance before he turned his attention back to the file. "Family lore is usually based on facts even though those facts might become embellished over the years. If we find that there is a pattern . . . " His voice trailed off as he turned another page.

"And here it is," he murmured as he flipped quickly through the next few pages.

"Here's _what_?"

"A murder for one thing. And- " He paused. "The exact cause of death for another." He read on. "Unnatural causes . . . Epithiah Blackmer. The victim apparently bled to death." He looked up. "But there was no visible wound found on the body."

"That's impossible."

"Really. Then have a look at this, lieutenant."

Not according to the file, it wasn't impossible.

"Interesting."

"What?"

"The body went missing."

She watched with a growing sense of dread as Ichabod returned the file to the empty place in the drawer.

Reluctantly, she told him, "There's someone we have to see."


	4. Chapter 4

**_Chapter 4_**

A call to Zahn Grayson had gotten them an appointment right away. Abby had met with the man several times over the years, but never in an official capacity. Once a medical scientist with a promising future, Zahn Grayson had turned his back on conventional medicine. He was now an expert in a new field. Vampirism.

No one took him seriously, of course. Abby certainly hadn't. Until now. Even at that, she was still skeptical. She looked at Zahn, who didn't look up from the book he was reading, and watched him turn another page. He must have filled the position of class nerd when he was in high school, she thought, with those thick black glasses. He pushed the glasses further up on his nose, without seeming to remember that anyone else was in the room.

"Real life vampires are a far cry from the vampires depicted in Hollywood," he told them with his head still bent over the book. "They have a few peculiarities, but for the most part they live like anyone else. They usually maintain a low profile and are generally harmless." He looked up and finally set the book aside. "At least they had been. Something seems to have changed."

While Abby doubted that vampires even existed, Zahn had studied them for more than two decades. The array of files, test tubes, vials, microscopes and other scientific paraphernalia crammed into what had once been his garage, attested to his devotion to the study of the subject.

As if he had just read her mind, Zahn said, "There might not be any viable proof or concrete evidence to support my claims, but vampires do exist. And they are probably responsible for this latest murder, not to mention at least one disappearance in the area in the past few months. And then there was that murder in Wood County several months ago."

That startled Abby. She thought over the details of the murder, admitted to herself that there were similarities. And she had filled out the missing person reports herself.

"The biggest question now," Zahn when on. "Is why they have started killing out in the open."

Zahn had his own theories on what caused vampirism, and he openly discussed these with his guests. "One possibility is a mutation in the gene or the bacteria itself that causes the condition. And maybe something in a changing, polluted environment has played a part. Who knows for sure? Even secret genetic tampering isn't out of the realm of possibility."

Whatever the answer, he told them soberly, they were looking at a new breed of vampire that was more aggressive. A lot more aggressive. They not only enjoyed the hunt, they glorified the kill. And they were voracious feeders. Their appetite not only for human blood, but for human flesh, seemed almost insatiable.

Abby had no doubt that Zahn Grayson was the closest thing to an expert in the area, but even he admitted that he was still learning. Ichabod was absorbing everything, listening to every word Zahn had to say.

Vampires couldn't turn into bats, Zahn told them. They couldn't turn into wolves. Did they have supernatural powers? Not exactly though sometimes it seemed that way. But they could subdue their prey in ways that he did not yet understand. And their senses were beyond normal human perceptions. But that wasn't so unusual. Dogs, for example, could hear and smell far better than their human masters who were supposedly superior.

Could they fly? Zahn didn't know. "But they can certainly move fast enough," he told them.

"And you know this because?" Abby asked.

"Because I came face to face with one of them once."

Abby and Ichabod looked at each other.

"As I said," Zahn went on. "They can move almost at a superhuman speed. They avoid daylight and hunt at night, like any other nocturnal animal. And apparently they are carving out a place at the top of the food chain and looking at us like we're prey. All myths aside, it's scary stuff. Damned scary."

_"The place is creepy enough in the day time," _Miranda Blackmer told them. You couldn't pay me enough to go inside. Especially at night. Not after what I've seen there."

The woman looked at the three people sitting opposite her on the porch. "You're going to keep after me about this, aren't you?"

Before Abby could reply to her question, Miranda sighed and settled back on the porch swing. It creaked rhythmically as she moved it back and forth with her foot. "It must have been really beautiful up here at one time," she said with a faraway look in her eyes. "You know, peaceful with the woods surrounding it. Without the ghosts," she added. "And by day it wasn't so bad. At first. But when darkness fell and the moonlight played tricks with the shadows- " Her voice trailed off and her expression became almost intense.

"My parents were very excited about living in the house," she went on. "They even joked about ghosts being there. I think they thought ghosts stories would make an interesting dinner subject for their circle of friends."

She laughed under her breath. "It's a good thing there were no ghost investigators back then, because my parents probably would have hired them. They were fascinated by the subject. In the beginning, that is.

"No one came right out and warned us about the house's reputation for being haunted. And my parent's, to be honest, had an ongoing fondness for alcohol. So for a while, strange happenings could be accounted for, and sometimes completely overlooked. But things progressed. At first it was just noises, nothing frightening really. There were the proverbial knockings. And sometimes we would hear footsteps when no one was there. These came from all parts of the house, day _and_ night. I would hear scratching behind the wall in my room once, but my father insisted that it was probably nesting birds.

"For a while we accused each other of trying to scare one another. Whenever there was something that couldn't be explained. The knockings, the scratching. There were even disembodied voices when no one was there. Blaming each other was easier than thinking that we weren't the only ones occupying the house.

"But then other disturbing things began to happen and they couldn't be so easily ignored. One day when my mother mentioned some of the- unexplained incidents to a friend one day, she warned my mother of the house's reputation of being haunted. Even after that my parents made the decision to stay in the house, in part because they had already paid several months of rent in advance. And in part because they only considered that any ghosts had to be benevolent ones. And my parents were intelligent, sophisticated people. So for a while we were able to convince ourselves that it was birds in the walls or water pipes or the house settling.

"But things changed. The sudden scent of cigars out of nowhere was a little harder to explain. And then there were the _appearances_. What could only be described as ghosts would congeal out of the very air and then fade away into nothing. We couldn't dismiss those because they were so deliberate and they were seen by everyone in the house. Even our guests.

"And then things took a darker turn." Fear shone in her eyes**,** even after all these years.

She rubbed her arms briskly. "I still get goosebumps when I think about it." After a little shiver and tried to laugh it off.

"I was awakened in the middle of the night. From a nightmare I think. It seemed that in the dream someone was calling my name. The moon was out that night and so the objects around my room were easy to make out."

"As I sat on my bed alone, I felt a hand lightly brushing against me, on my shoulder. Even though I tried to move, I couldn't. I was frozen with fear I suppose."

"The next night my mother woke from a deep sleep for no apparent reason. She had an eerie sensation that she was not alone. Turning around in bed towards the wall, she saw a dark figure there, with a face so terrifying that she said it made her blood run cold. She immediately started screaming for my father.

"Needless to say, my mother was half scared to death. She absolutely refused to be alone in the house. We stayed there a few more weeks before we finally moved out. We even forfeited the rest of the rent money. My mother vowed that she would never step foot in the house again."

"The place has fallen into disrepair, I hear. No one has occupied it for the past forty years or so. I heard a relative talk about restoring it to its former state once long ago. But after I told her my story, nothing came of it."

To restore it

*hypothesize that we create monsters to give acceptable form to our unnamed anxieties, that we invent our monsters by projection, our fear of the unknown *in this scientific age

*many observers have gone thru extraordinary mental gymnastics to persuade themselves that they did not see what they thought they saw.

Trick of light, something else

*they would rather devise and swallow the most tortuous explanation than believe the most straightforward report.

Rather than believe that there could be Malevolent entities

* * *

><p><em>Catrina came to Ichabod that night in his dreams<em>. At first, she was at a distance, but then she was suddenly standing right before him. She reached out. Her hand touched his chest and then trailed down along his bare, flat belly. But this time he wasn't attracted to her. He found her presence almost suffocating. He found her touch distressing. He grabbed her hand to stop her.

"Stop," he ordered her. As his hand closed around hers, he didn't feel the softness he had expected. Her hand was as cold as ice. He cried out, dropping her hand as he realized it was a claw with dripping talons.

Nor was her reaction what he would have expected. She hissed suddenly like a startled viper. And then she swiped her nails across his chest, hard enough to draw blood. As he stared at her, she vanished right before his eyes. When he looked in his mirror, however, he saw her there behind him. But she was a hideous creature with black, glittering eyes.

Her head tilted one way, and then another and he realized she wasn't quite human. Her jerky movements were like those of a demon that had escaped from the depths of hell. Her black eyes continued to watch him in the moonlight. Her mouth opened, as it had before. It was black, cavernous, as if it would swallow him whole. 

* * *

><p><em>Author's notes: The next chapter will be up soon. I will update weekly. In the meantime if anyone is interested, I have written another zombie book on Amazon called "Blood Storm: DeadRise II" and will have a link up for it in a few days on my profile page. Just click my name.<em>


	5. Chapter 5

**_Chapter 5_**

Ichabod's dream was preying on his mind despite his best efforts to ignore it. This dream had crossed the line into reality. So he asked Abby right out. "Did you hear anything strange last night?"

"No," she answered him. "Why?"

"I- " he began, not sure how to explain it all. "Were_ you_ in my room last night?"

She gave him the same reply she had just given him. "No."

"I could swear that someone was in my room. If it wasn't Catrina, then it was someone who looked very much like her. At first."

"Maybe she had a message for you," Abby suggested.

He shook his head. "No. If that was the case- " he began. "No," he shook his head again, resolutely this time. "It was not the Catrina that I remembered. Whoever was in my room last night was something evil." He drew a deep breath before he went on. "Who wished to do me harm."

He had Abby's full attention now.

"Besides, when I awoke, I wasn't in bed. I was standing up."

"Is it possible you were sleep walking?"

"I suppose anything is possible. But she- touched me."

"A dream can seem real- " Abby began.

"Real enough to leave scratch marks?" he interrupted her.

"You have scratch marks?"

"Yes." He untied the lacing of his shirt and there were the marks plain to see.

"Those look- painful." Abby said with a frown. "Are you sure Catrina wasn't there in some kind of weird physical manifestation and you weren't kissing her and things got a little carried away- "

He stiffened. "It wasn't that kind of dream. This was a full-fledged, out and out nightmare. There is no mistaking that it was a malevolent spirit standing right there in my room before me."

"I see." Abby thought for a while. They seemed to be hearing more and more about malevolent spirits.

"If you are so certain that someone was in your room last night, and it wasn't

Catrina . . . "

"Then who was it?" they both finished in unison. 

* * *

><p><em>"But I don't remember falling asleep." <em>

"Who remembers falling asleep?" Ichabod tried to reassure Aedre, but the truth was that she had alarmed him with an account of _her_ own disturbing dream. It was so similar to his. It was easy to see that she wasn't comfortable discussing this with him. She twisted her hands nervously in her lap.

"It wasn't the only vivid dream I've had lately," she said so softly he could barely catch the words.

"You've had other dreams?" he asked. "Of _me_?"

She nodded silently. Slowly.

"And am I wrong to assume that the dreams of me aren't all nightmares?"

The blunt statement caused her to stare at him for the space of several heartbeats.

She was even more embarrassed. She flushed deeply and avoided looking at him.

"Aedre."

She still couldn't look at him.

"Aedre," he began again. "You can tell me anything. I would like to hear more about your nightmares. It think it's important that we share them. There is a reason we're having them."

"And I would like to tell you more, Ichabod, really, but I can't remember much more than what I've already told you. Except- "

"Except what?"

He took her chin in his fingers and turned her face gently towards him.

"Except- " she began. She looked lost for a moment before she lifted her blue eyes to his. "There is something I want to say to you, but it's so far down in the darkness, that I can't find the words."

_They were in the Records Room again_. But this time they didn't need permission to look at the files.

"There's no record, Ichabod. Anywhere."

Abby looked up at him, wondering what was going through his mind. It was as if Catrina had never existed. They had done a very thorough search. She was not listed under her maiden name. Nor could they find her listed as Catrina Crane.

"There should be something," Abby murmured as her fingers thoughtfully tapped the table top. There was no birth certificate, no marriage license, no death certificate. No information on her whatsoever. Which was surprising because they found information on Ichabod with hardly any effort at all. They even found an obituary for Ichabod Crane.

He had been listed as missing and presumed dead during a skirmish with enemy forces.

By the end of the day, he wouldn't be the only one missing.

* * *

><p><em>Ichabod rubbed the back of his neck<em> and flexed the muscles in his shoulders. He went to the refrigerator and downed half a can of soda before he dropped back down on the sofa. It had taken him some time to get used to drinking the cold beverage. Right now, however, he needed the caffeine. And the sugar. He had barely slept the night before. He was exhausted but there wasn't a chance in hell he was going to be able to sleep tonight.

He stared down at the small black book in his hands. He didn't even know that Aedre had kept a journal. He should have known she would. She was an avid reader. She especially enjoyed when he read poetry to her. He had found the journal under her pillow when they'd searched her apartment after she'd gone missing.

He went back over every detail he could think of, looking for something, anything, that might help him find her. She had been distant and preoccupied the last time he'd seen her. He should have known that something wasn't right. He should have paid more attention to his instincts. He should have checked on her sooner when she didn't show up for their dinner- date.

Still wrestling with his guilt, he opened the journal to the first page and re-read it. Were there clues there that he had missed? There was no way of knowing for sure, Ichabod thought, until he examined every word. Again and again and again.

_Saturday -_ _Dark skies weep this morning. Rain is falling quietly on the leaves outside _

_ my window. The trees stand silent, writhen limbs black in the rain. The trees do not _

_ change, but will continue another year's growth out of their distortions, the influence of _

_ the past. I dreamed again of Ichabod. These dreams haunt me . . ._


	6. Chapter 6

**_Chapter 6_**

Turning his back on her was not an option. Ichabod stood transfixed by the change in Aedre, still trying to convince himself that she was not an apparition or some trick of the shadows. But this was no illusion.

In the last hours before dawn, the fog had thickened. It lay low to the ground so that she looked as if she had materialized from the mist itself. Moonlight sifted down through the branches of the trees above her. Like translucent pearl, it touched her with an unearthly radiance. Her skin was pale as alabaster. Bloodless. Deathlike.

Everything in him wanted to go to her, but he knew for her sake that he could not. It was a struggle for him, the hardest of his life. To save her he must keep a distance or there could be no hope or her. And he would not give up hope. He refused to believe that he had lost her forever, even as a wave of unrelenting helplessness gripped him.

At that moment the others became aware of him. There were three of them. They turned with snarling rage at his intrusion. All of them had the same look, skin albescent, eyes unnaturally pale. They were like something straight out of a present-day horror movie.

Of the hellish trio, it was the tall figure nearest her that stood out from the others. A briar-like web of shadows from the tree branches dissected the cadaverous face. Colorless eyes that gleamed with a bluish, milky sheen in the moonlight continued to watch Ichabod. The thin, pallid lips lifted. It was almost a smile but there was no smile in the man, or whatever he was, Ichabod knew. It was more like a wolf baring its teeth. As Ichabod watched, the smile widened into a grin, possessive and gloating, and he knew he was staring into the face of pure, unholy evil. And there was something else. Something familiar. Something he should be remembering.

The ghoul reached out and grabbed Aedre by the arm, pulling her hard to his side. Ichabod had to draw up every ounce of will power he possessed to keep from going to her. He reminded himself again that only patience was going to save her.

But patience was almost impossible to summon. It seemed as elusive as the mist rising up around him. He struggled, almost losing the battle when the first bird announced the approach of dawn. The darkness would not last much longer. He knew it, and so did they. Before he could make any kind of move, they had vanished into the shadows, taking Aedre with them.

Ichabod stood alone while a torrent of emotions seethed through him. But he had learned a great deal. For one, he had come face to face with them. He realized that they surely would have killed him if dawn had not been some sort of a signal for them. It could be a weakness. The second important lesson was that lures could draw them out. And much more than that, Aedre was still alive.

_Ichabod had given Aedre's journal to Zahn Grayson_ in the hopes that he might be able to glean some information from her writings over the past few weeks.

"Were you able to learn anything new?" Ichabod wanted to know.

"Yes," Zahn answered, nodding slowly. "A great deal."

"You're sure she is- " He had a hard time saying it. "Still alive?"

"It looks that way to me."

"And they want to make her one of them?"

Zahn nodded and watched as Ichabod got up abruptly from his chair and paced the room.

He stopped pacing and asked suddenly, "If she can be infected, can she be uninfected?"

The other man frowned down at the journal for a moment. "I wish I had a definitive answer for you. This is caused by a bacteria. I already know that. But it's more complicated than that. Most are born with it. I'm certain that they have a special gene that interacts with the bacteria. So theoretically – which has been proven- " He paused and cleared his throat as his hand indicated the journal. "You can get it from being bitten. Like most bacteria, it can be transmitted through blood or saliva. If you have the special gene, you don't die. You turn."

"Into a bloodsucking monster," Ichabod said as he turned his face to the side.

A silence lengthened between them before Zahn said, "Think about it, Ichabod. We eat the flesh of animals. We even eat internal organs. Is it any different? Really? It's how we get our nourishment. We're carnivores. So are they."

"You're saying they're just like us?" Ichabod asked.

"No, I'm not," Zahn said shaking his head. "And I'm not defending them. I'm saying that anticipating them is going to be important in stopping them. And that means understanding them. How they think. What their habits are. What makes them do what they do. Our strength is understanding their differences and maybe even more importantly their similarities."

"Then what exactly," Ichabod asked low-voiced. "Makes them different?"

"We both know there are definite changes in the blood and in the pigment in the skin and the eyes. And in the central nervous system. Hell, there are changes on a cellular level that I can't even begin to understand."

"Is she still- who she is?" Ichabod wanted to know. He kept seeing her as she stood in the moonlight, the look in her eyes so far away from him that he felt he might never be able to reach her again.

"She will retain part of who she was, but the bacteria will cause changes in her brain and therefore her thought processes will be affected. She won't have complete control over it. She may have _no_ control. Her journal was very clear. She was- struggling.

"It's hard to say how permanent the changes might be. In my tests antibiotics have effectively killed the bacteria, but I haven't been able to conduct any tests on humans . . . " His voice trailed off.

On test subjects. Animals.

It wasn't much of an answer. In fact it was woefully lacking in what Ichabod needed most right now. Hope.

Leaning back in his chair, Zahn sighed deeply, his face sobering. "In twenty years I have never seen anything like this. They have never hunted in packs before. And they mostly survived by feeding on small animals. But now- " He paused. "It seems they have learned, somehow, that they can infect a certain percentage of the population and turn them into one of their own kind. I don't know if they can tell beforehand who will turn and who won't. They may have a way of knowing. It may be a generational kind of thing. It's hard to say how far this will go. But I do know this. What they do is nothing less than murder. Their minds have embraced evil. And I do believe in evil. Make no mistake about that. Out of all of this, there is one irrefutable fact. They need to be stopped. And we need to concentrate on finding her while she can still be helped. Read the journal. See what you can make of it. Maybe between the two of us, we can make sense of any clues she might have left behind."

A knock sounded on the door. It was Abby.

She stood there, silent for a while, but she knew there was no sense prolonging the inevitable. Both men were waiting for her to speak. "They found another body," she said. "Over in the next county. There's, uh, barely enough left for an ID. They're saying it's some kind of animal attack."

Ichabod didn't say a word, but Zahn asked because he had to, "Male or female?"

"They don't know yet," Abby answered him. "I'm on my way to the station now."


	7. Chapter 7

**_Chapter 7_**

"Look, all we want is permission to look at the body."

The deputy's lower lip went out in a pout as he considered the three people before him. He leaned even farther back in his chair, and balanced his coffee cup on top of his bulging belly.

He lifted the cup to his mouth and sipped loudly, then breathed out a satisfied "ahhh" before he answered them. "I have no problem with you _officially_ having a look at the remains," he looked pointedly at Abby. "But Mr. Grayson here- "

"Doctor Grayson is here to offer his scientific expertise," Ichabod finished impatiently.

The deputy squinted one eye at Ichabod. He looked at Abby and pointed his thumb in Ichabod's direction. "What about Fabio here?" A deep belch was drowned out by the chair's loud squeak as it teetered precariously on two legs. The deputy was a big man.

Fabio? Ichabod had never heard of the man, if indeed it was a man.

"I already told you, we just want to know if there is a similarity in cases," Abby said.

"I can tell you now that it _had_ to be an animal attack," the deputy told her. "Coyotes maybe."

"Come on, Tiny," Zahn began impatiently. "Coyotes didn't do this. Where's Sheriff Layton?"

"Something happened up on Pea Ridge. IvaMay Blackmer called in damned near hysterical about an hour ago. Seems one of her kids is missing. She's got five of 'em. Probably turned up by now."

Zahn and Ichabod looked at each other. Then they looked at Abby.

"Blackmer?"

"Yes. IvaMay married into the Blackmer family. It caused quite a stir around here. I can tell you that. Jackson Blackmer's parents didn't think that IvaMay was good enough- "

"Could you save the gossip for later?" Abby interrupted him. "We don't have time for that right now."

"Anyway," the deputy said. "The sheriff himself has to give you permission to see the body. Look," he went on as he absently shuffled the corners of a stack of papers on the desk. "It's bad enough two dead bodies have turned up. If people start thinking there's some wacko out there who's responsible, how's that going to make people feel? I've been hearing all kinds of crazy talk about vampires." He looked pointedly at Zahn. "And we all know where that would have come from. It used to be quiet around here. Now we get five- six calls a night. People are spooked. Take a woman like IvaMay who lives alone out in the middle of nowhere and add crazy rumors, what do you think is going to happen? She calls in for every little thing. That's what happens. God knows what happened to the kid. Probably playing some kind of prank. Kids are like that."

Abby was losing patience. "If you let us view the remains, I'll square it with the sheriff when he gets back. You know he likes me."

But the deputy wasn't budging and Zahn said with a jerk of his head in Ichabod's direction, "His friend is missing. He wants to- know."

"How long's your friend been missing?" The deputy asked Ichabod.

"A few days."

"Oh," was the deputy's quiet reply. "With that other murder, and the disappearances, you realize there's a chance- "

"Don't say it," Ichabod gritted through his teeth.

"When you're in this line of work," the deputy said as he looked over the brim of his coffee cup. "You get used to these kinds of things." Some of the coffee sloshed over the rim of the cup and spilled on his uniform shirt. He wiped at it with his hand. "A few days is a long time to be missing and you've got to expect- "

He never finished what he was about to say. The full force of his fury and his frustration were behind Ichabod's fist when it connected with the deputy's jaw. Coffee spilled everywhere.

* * *

><p><em>Sheriff Galt Layton shook his head.<em> He didn't even look in the direction of his deputy who was still ranting about assaulting an officer of the law when the sheriff shut his office door.

"I only have four deputies left because of budget cuts," the sheriff told the three people in the office. "With everything that's happening around here, we're stretched pretty thin." He huffed out a frustrated breath. "IvaMay Blackmer's little girl is barely a year old. I'm not about to miss an opportunity to save this child because of a technicality, so if you have any ideas, have at it."

He narrowed his gaze as he looked at Zahn. "I know you too well to _not_ take you seriously. You're not the crackpot most people make you out to be." His remark surprised Ichabod. "And I've got a good idea you're not just here because you're selling girl scout cookies. And _you_," His gaze shifted to Abby. "Apparently believe he has some credibility or you wouldn't be here together. As long as you keep a low profile and you make sure to cover your asses, I don't care if you think it's vampires, werewolves or leprechauns. All I care about is finding that child."

The sheriff leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms over his chest. "Now that we're on the same page, you've got complete access to any evidence or records you need, the remains included. I'll make sure Tiny is aware of that. You just make sure to let me know what you find out."

The sheriff crossed the room, opened the door and called out, "Tiny, get us some coffee."

* * *

><p><em> Ichabod swore under his breath<em> and rubbed his palm across his beard-roughened chin. Guilt washed over him anew. She had needed him and he had not been there for her. Aedre's face rose again in his mind in clear and haunting detail. His mouth tightened into a grim line as he turned another page of her journal.

_Something is happening to me. Night has become a thing to be feared. I am haunted by _

_ dreams that leave me breathless with fear. Last night as I lay in bed I had a strange and _

_ terrifying conviction that something was in the attic, something dark that came winging _

_ its way through the house, smooth and silent as the shadows. Too afraid to move, I _

_ waited out the dawn._

_ Morning. Emotion is a tangled thing inside me. I try to gather my thoughts, am filled _

_ with a sense of shame at having lost control somehow. I am lost and adrift on a very _

_ fragile life raft that barely keeps me afloat in the middle of an ocean of dark and terrifying _

_ depths that threaten to drown me. I cling with my feeble strength, but the waves keep _

_ getting higher._

An entry two days later was no less disturbing.

_ I sink further. Only these empty pages are safe. Only these empty pages will listen and _

_ not condemn. And I wish? That if I falter and say what I don't mean to say, there would _

_ be someone with a willingness to stay by my side, even to touch, unafraid the _

_ dark things that reside inside me and to ease the wounding of my soul. Ichabod, would you _

_ understand? _

And her last entry:

_ I woke suddenly with the sensation that I was in the process of dying, and feeling that _

_ I would fall all to pieces if I moved even the slightest bit. I fear that the darkness will _

_ come over me again and I desperately want it to go away. Forever this time. Am I sliding _

_ helplessly into madness? Whatever this is, I cannot stop the descent. I wonder if I fall _

_ into that darkness, will anyone be able to pull me out again?_

It was the last entry in the journal. Ichabod was re-reading the chilling last page when his cell phone rang. He reached for it and listened to Zahn Grayson on the other end.

* * *

><p>In a moment, awareness came back to her. It was as if she had been deep asleep and was suddenly awake. She was alarmed to find that she could not move. A strange paralysis had complete control over her limbs. Neither could she speak. Her attempts at speech remained in her head, silent and unspoken.<p>

She willed herself to concentrate. You need to think your way out of this, Aedre, if you want to survive. Don't let yourself drift back into the darkness.

She opened her eyes to see that there was light. Faint, yellow light. Candlelight, perhaps. There was a sickly sweet odor in her nostrils, which mingled with a musty scent that filled her lungs with each breath.

She became aware of voices. Male voices. Low, detached and disembodied. She untangled them from the thoughts in her head.

"She still refuses to feed? I have never seen anyone fight so hard. She is growing weak."

"But she is learning that there are consequences to defiance," a second voice answered the first one. "It won't be long before she . . . "

She could not catch the last words.

As she lay there helpless, a pale face separated itself from the darkness. It hovered over her, gloating, enjoying her fear. Colorless, gleaming eyes watched her intently for a few moments longer.

And then something closed over her, slammed shut with a suddenness that took her fragile breath away. There was an immediate and complete absence of light and of sound. In the pitch blackness there was a prickling sensation in her limbs. One hand moved, and soon the other. When she was able to raise her hands she pushed upward against the lid.

Panic consumed her as she realized she could not lift it and soon adrenaline overcame the weakness in her fingers. Her hands were tearing frantically at the confining walls around her. A feeling of being trapped made her desperate. Terror continued to rise in breath-stealing waves. She felt like she was suffocating.

It was like being caught in a nightmare. Only the nightmare was real and there was no escape for her. A chilling smile outside her prison grew as her muffled screams pierced the darkness inside the coffin.


	8. Chapter 8

**_Chapter 8_**

_Ichabod jolted awake in the darkness_, sitting straight up in his bed. Fragments of a dream, or a series of dreams were coming and going like heat lightning in the darkness. Some of it didn't make sense, but Ichabod held onto what was important. A circular tower of stone. Angel wings. He tried to keep hold of what his brain had worked through in an uncluttered, unconscious state. And then he knew suddenly what his sluggish brain had been trying to remember.

The truth was as shocking and sudden as a searing bolt of lightning. He grabbed up his cell phone, silently and profoundly thanking Abby for giving it to him. He was already out the door when he was punching in the numbers for the first call.

* * *

><p><em>Abby looked at Ichabod in astonishment.<em> "You mean the whole relationship, marriage and all, was fabricated?"

As fantastic as that sounded, it was true.

"Even your feelings?" Abby asked.

"Yes. The entire relationship was all a lie. I didn't realize it was Vaden Bainbridge, until my dream revealed it to me. He had changed so much that at first I didn't recognize him as he stood in the moonlight with Aedre."

"And this Vaden Bainbridge was alive back then?"

"Yes. We were enemies working for opposite sides. He swore he would destroy me. Somehow," Ichabod went on. "He has become a vampire. And he has the power to cast dreams like spells."

"To trap you into believing that what you dream is real."

"But I'm dreaming about Aedre, too."

"Those dreams are real. They must be your own."

"Yes, you're right. There is a difference."

"Is that the reason he has taken Aedre? He wants some kind of sick revenge against you?"

"It may be part of the reason."

"The question is how do we stop him?"

* * *

><p><em> The night was so deep and she was a part of it.<em> The darkness was comforting, the moon serene. The mist was like a living entity that surrounded her. All things were black around her or they gleamed white. It was as if the color had been stripped from the world, leaving only contrasting shades of light and darkness.

The night air was heavy in her lungs. She breathed it inside her body and it became a part of her. A cool breeze caressed her skin. The moon had its own effect upon her senses. Whereas sunlight was excruciating to her eyes, painful where it touched her skin, the moon had the opposite effect. The sunlight was so painful, in fact, that she welcomed the darkness and the security of her box. They didn't even bother to lock her in any more.

She drifted slowly through the peaceful darkness of the garden, living only in the present. This was her world now. The other was almost forgotten though something elusive did try to lure her back at times. There seemed to be a wall between her and her memory, but there was a presence that haunted her. In the shadows at the very edge of consciousness was a face, one that a part of her wished to see with a deep well of longing. But always, before she could completely latch onto it, the image blurred and she could not hold onto it. Still, it left her with a nameless yearning and a deep sense of loss.

She lived only by moments. At the present moment she was too weak to even try to remember so she let it go. Adrift was a momentary regret, an uncertainty. The hollow pain turned inside itself. She retreated into darkness with the remnant of her strength, as if huge wings had enfolded her, and yet the enfolding itself was a terrifying thing. It was like falling into darkness, like falling into a place inside her own mind. Her consciousness narrowed. It almost ceased to exist. But as she sat there, bathed in moonlight like the other statues, her expression also frozen, mingling with the mist there were tears on her face.

"The drugs keep her sedated but they may kill her," a detached voice said out of the darkness. The words had little meaning for her. They faded like bits of stardust.

"The virus makes her stronger. She will survive. I can sense it. And each time I re-infect her, she fights a little less."

"You should force her to eat."

"No. I will have her do it willingly. It will be so much more meaningful when she finally does yield her will to mine. And then my vengeance will be complete."

There was a long silence, and then: "She has become an obsession to you. The one thing that is beyond your grasp."

"_Was_ beyond my grasp," Vaden Bainbridge corrected. His pale face turned slowly in the moonlight. "I think she is an obsession to _you, _Epithiah. You have been thinking of her as a ceremonial feeding."

"Yes I won't deny that. This one has a fragrance to her that I find almost irresistible. Her flesh would be tender, her blood sweet . . . " The voice faded.

"Find another to appease your hunger. She belongs to me."

"Be careful," Epithia warned. "Obsessions have a way of clouding our judgment. Crane is still hoping to save her?"

"He doesn't give up easily. He never has. He will be especially persistent where she is concerned. But that is precisely what I am counting on." Vaden Bainbridge gave a chilling semblance of a smile.

"You have wanted vengeance for a long time." It was not a question, but merely a fact.

"Yes." The answer was a sibilant hiss that faded as a slight wind shook the tangle of vines around them. The moonlight gilded the stones and the shadows of inscriptions that were a vain attempt to capture time as it passed. The cambered contour of angel wings behind them gleamed in the moonlight, like the expressive face frozen in sorrow. "But my hold on him is fading. It began to do so from the moment- "

From the moment that Crane had begun to have feelings for Aedre. The illusion of Catrina that he had planted in Crane's mind had not been as strong, apparently, as the power of love. Not that he believed in the emotion. He saw it merely as a counterfeit for other things not quite so noble. It was not in him to love. It never had been. To him, love was a weakness. Even as a human long ago, he had scorned the pathetic emotion.

They turned at the same time to see Aedre moving slowly along one of the garden paths.

"Come," he said, leading her to a low bench in the tall weeds.

There was no rebellion in her eyes at the moment, only mindless obiescence. When she was seated, he took her hand and turned the palm upward. He ran a slow finger along the pearlescent flesh. He leaned over her while he continued to watch her with his pale eyes. She was becoming so used to the pain, she did not even flinch when he sank his teeth into her wrist.

* * *

><p>"Here. And here."<p>

Ichabod continued to stare down at the map overlapping the edges of the table.

Suddenly he cursed. Damn. Why couldn't he have seen it sooner?

He had carelessly overturned his coffee cup. The dark liquid made a straight line that pointed like an arrow between the locations of the murders. Dead center. His frown deepened as he stared at the spot where the coffee had pooled into a distinct V.

Yes. Just like an arrow.

His gut instinct was kicking into high gear. He knew that Vaden Bainbridge had Aedre. The man, it seemed, had disappeared off the face of the earth- When? It must have been sometime before he, himself, had been transported into the future. Somehow, Bainbridge was here, too. As a vampire. He had Aedre, and now Ichabod had to find out where he had taken her.

He grabbed a napkin to absorb the coffee, then pointed to the stain on the map. "What's up here?"

"Let's see." The sheriff leaned over the map, squinting at the small writing. He had to put on his reading glasses.

"Right there? That's an old family cemetery. So old it's not on the maps. There are a lot more of those around than people realize. I've been up there a few times, but not recently."

What else is near there?" Ichabod wanted to know.

"The old Blackmer house," Zahn told him. "It's abandoned. People say it's haunted."

Ichabod blinked a few times. It was all beginning to make sense. Terrible, awful sense.

"The place has been boarded up for the past forty years or so," the sheriff went on. "There's no road to it anymore, but the iron gates out front still stand. It's like a fortress. There's even a circular tower."

"Made out of stone?" Ichabod asked.

"Yeah," the sheriff replied, looking up. "How'd you know that?"

Ichabod didn't answer. With a quick flick of his wrist, he tossed his Styrofoam coffee cup away, along with the napkin. "She's there. Probably the missing child, too."

"Huh?" The sheriff was at a loss.

Zahn was nodding his head. "You're right, of course. The pieces fit. It would be a likely place. Hidden away. Private."

"We can't explain now, Sheriff, but we need to get up there."

"If you've never seen the house," he said to Ichabod. "I gotta warn you, you go there and someone's waiting for you, they'll have the advantage."

That was probably true, but Ichabod would walk straight into hell to save Aedra.


	9. Chapter 9

**_Chapter 9_**

Vaden Bainbridge in the flesh. Or rather, the dead flesh. He looked like some kind of walking corpse. Facing the man at last, Ichabod heard, "You don't seem surprised to see me, Crane."

"No," Ichabod replied. "I'm not surprised."

Robed in black, Bainbridge was a sinister figure in the moonlight. Ichabod's eye was drawn to the brief gleam of a sharp, elongated tooth as the man smiled.

"You know, you can't count on the sheriff to help you," Bainbridge began in a bland tone. "He had an unfortunate accident. The last time I saw him he was- well, not having his best day. And that nuisance Zahn Grayson is locked up until I decide what to do with _him_."

Ichabod could see that Bainbridge was enjoying the situation. "She belongs to me now," he taunted. "A part of me runs through her veins, Crane."

"The poisonous part," Ichabod replied.

"'Tis is her choice, Crane," he said, slipping into the old form of speech. "To stay with me."

"You didn't give her any choice."

"She's certainly better off with me than she was with you. She couldn't compare to your beloved _Catrina_." He dragged out the word and followed it with a low, malicious laugh.

"Where is Aedre now? Let me hear what she has to say."

"She doesn't want to see you," Bainbridge said.

"You won't _let_ her see me."

"Perhaps you fear that she will have the presence of mind to make her own comparison and her own choice, me or a monster like you."

Bainbridge sneered. "A monster or whatever you want to call it, it makes us stronger. You can't imagine the power we possess."

"It also makes you capable of taking human life," Ichabod reminded him. And then because he had to try, he said, "You used to be a halfway decent person before the war years. Maybe you can be cured."

"I don't want to be cured. This is who I am."

"Even if who you are kills innocent people? Children included? Whatever you want to call it, it still sounds like a monster to me."

Ichabod could see that there was no remorse in the man. In fact, he laughed outright.

"Where is she?" Ichabod repeated.

"She will choose me over you."

Bainbridge was pretty sure of himself. There was a moment when Ichabod wondered if what he was saying was true. He shook it off. Who knew what the bastard had done to Aedre.

Bainbridge wasn't finished with his taunting. "I'm pleased that you brought the doctor with you. I was planning on visiting him myself. He's been working hard on his ideas. Radical though they are, people might start listening to him. I can't allow that to happen."

Ichabod edged closer to Bainbridge, who laughed under his breath, amused. "Oh, that's good. Really. You think you can make a move that I am not aware of? You can't. I can see better than you. I can hear better. I can assure you of that. But let me prove that point to you." His voice ended in a soft snarl.

Ichabod knew that they could move fast, but not that fast. He was slammed hard into the concrete wings of an angel, his shoulder taking most of the impact.

Bainbridge struck again, without warning, and Ichabod was hurled against a tall marble pillar. His ribs connected that time. He received several quick punches to the face. He tasted blood. He hit back but his blows seemed inconsequential. In fact, it seemed they were having no effect at all.

"You're no match for me, Crane. And, by the way, I've wanted to do this to you for a long time."

In the moonlight Bainbridge's grin stayed in place as his fist connected with Ichabod's midsection. Ichabod's breath left him suddenly. He heard himself groan and thought he was going to be sick. Damn, that had hurt. It felt like he'd been kicked by a mule.

Another punch to his ribs drove him to the ground. He struggled to his knees and swayed in the shadow of a cross, laboring for breath.

"We're stronger. Faster," Bainbridge said above him. "We don't have the same weaknesses you have."

"Except for sunlight," Ichabod reminded him, panting.

Bainbridge stepped closer. Ichabod could see the gleam of his eyes as he leaned close and said softly, "But it's hours before dawn. And sunrise. We can make this last."

Yes, sunrise. But there was good, old-fashioned garlic.

Barely winded, Bainbridge stood watching him closely. But not close enough. Ichabod's fingers closed around the vial in his pocket. He surprised Bainbridge by thrusting upward and embedding the syringe deeply into his throat. His thumb made sure that every last drop was expelled.

Merciful heavens, let it work. Ichabod prayed for all their sakes that Zahn Gray's preliminary tests that had showed so much promise on animal subjects were actually going to work here.

And it seemed to be working. Instantly. Ichabod got to his feet and looked down at Bainbridge who was struggling on the ground. He was howling in pain and rage as if acid had been injected into his veins.

It didn't take long. After a few last shuddering spasms, Bainbridge finally collapsed and lay still. Apparently garlic was a fast-acting toxin to a vampire. Ichabod stood over the corpse. He guessed he could call it a corpse. For real this time.

"I should have known," Ichabod muttered to himself. "Hundreds of years of folklore couldn't be wrong."

Ichabod looked up. Aedre was standing in the doorway, a child in her arms. He didn't know if she recognized him. She seemed confused, lost, but she was holding the child in a protective way.

Clutching the child tightly to her, Aedre knew that some deep part of her had been trying to save it. From what or from whom she didn't know, but instinct had made her react blindly though she had been terrified.

Someone took the baby from her. She backed away, tightened herself into the shadows and the safety of the darkness, suppressing many things. There was a key to her salvation, somewhere, she knew. She lifted her eyes. They were pleading eyes now, eyes that sought a deliverance. Some faint glimmer of memory connected with her consciousness as she stared into the face before her. She felt herself awash in a deep current of comfort and leaned into it, too weak to stand on her own. She watched her hand reach out. She heard her voice call out.


	10. Chapter 10

**_Chapter 10_**

**_Epilogue_**

Journal entry:

_Dawn begins to lighten the east and gradually the sky reveals its depths of mauve and _

_ rose above the distant hills. Today is a new beginning for me as well . . . _

Aedre closed the small book in her hands and looked up at the glow of sunrise growing beyond the bedroom curtains. In her eyes was a reflection of the morning sky as it filtered through delicate lace flowers. With the poisons finally out of her system, the antibiotics had worked miraculously. It hadn't been easy, but she had fought her way back with everything in her. There was a soft knock on the door.

"Come in."

"I brought you some tea," Ichabod said as he entered the room and set a dainty porcelain cup and saucer on the nightstand beside the bed.

She thanked him and set the book aside. "I was just taking a moment to write down my thoughts," she said.

"I thought that maybe we could talk," he said, glancing at her face and watching her closely. Physically, at least, there were few traces of the ordeal she had been through. Emotionally, he knew it would take a little longer to heal.

"And what would you like to talk about?" she asked, pulling her nightgown aside as he sat down beside her.

"We could start with what you're thinking this morning." He said, then sat back and waited for her answer.

"I was thinking," she began. "That there is a great deal to learn from our trials. Things that we could not have learned in any other way."

"And?" he prompted, impatience almost getting the best of him.

A smile played about her lips. "I have learned," she said softly. "What I could not have known before."

He arched one dark brow, not sparing her. It was one of the few times she had seen him truly impatient, though he was making a heroic effort to suppress it.

"Where my wishes and my prayers will take me, I don't know," she went on. "But surely they will carry me along, unfettered now by the darker things that had kept me prisoner. And I have realized," she went on. "That the pathos, the poignancy, the depths – they are all a part of the equation. They make a love story powerful."

He looked at her, hanging on every word.

"In spite of it all, I was not destroyed," she said. "Because of a love that was stronger than anything they could do to me. There are mornings, Ichabod," she whispered, holding his gaze. "That I shall hold forever in my heart. Have you looked outside to see how beautiful the sunrise is?"

He nodded. Yes, he had seen that, too. But at the moment, there was something more pressing on his mind.

"You know, Ichabod, if Abby were to see you coming from my room so early, she might think you never left last night."

"She might get that impression," he agreed. "But I don't think the idea would grieve her very much. She is an incurable matchmaker as you well know."

They were both staying at Abby's house. Aedre was providing Zahn Gray with invaluable data for his continuing research on vampires.

"I don't think it would grieve me very much, either," she admitted softly.

Both his brows lifted this time. "Aedre, you are a saucy vixen."

She laughed lightly. He had just finished his first romance novel and he was picking up some new phrases.

"Perhaps we might make that happen one day?"

It was a question and she answered him coyly. "Perhaps."

She knew that he had been waiting all night for her answer. He was waiting still. But she was in no hurry, wanting to prolong the moment.

She closed her eyes for a few moments, then looked at him. "Once upon a time, a kiss awakened me in a dream." There was a wistful expression on her face. "I will wait for a kiss to awaken me again. And forever again," she breathed.

"Aedre," he said suddenly. "You are driving me mad. I have been waiting now for- "

"Yes, Ichabod."

He looked at her and blinked as if he was not sure he had heard her right.

"Yes," she repeated. "I'll marry y- "

But she never finished because he had grabbed her and he was kissing her with a passion that would have put any romance novel to shame.

He drew back finally and said, "Now this is what I call a happy ending."

She laughed while the misty sun rose beyond the trees. As daylight came shining softly into the room, she put her hand into his.

* * *

><p><em>The End<em>


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